Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Staunton, August 7 – A new scholarly
study showing that Kazakhs and ethnic Russians are increasingly estranged from
each other, with Russians now twice as likely to feel that way as Kazakhs, has
so disturbed the Kazakhstan government that Astana has moved to take it down
from all Kazakh sites lest it spark more discussions about this most sensitive
issue.

Badytzhamal Bekturanova, the
president of the Association of Sociologists and Political Scientists of
Kazakhstan recently released a report, “Russians and Kazakhs: Why Inter-Ethnic
Estrangement is Growing.”Within days,
the Kazakhstan government moved to suppress the report by removing it from all
websites hosted in the republic.

But the nature of the Internet is
such that almost nothing that is posted once ever completely disappears, and
Bekturanova’s study is now attracting the attention of sites outside of that
republic and almost certainly provoking discussions within Kazakhstan and quite
likely within the Russian Federation as well.

An example of this is provided by a
lengthy article on an Uzbek site prepared by Russian journalist Aleksandr
Shustov who summarizes Bekturanova’s findings and argues that the estrangement
she found is the result in his view of “the dangerous games Kazakh nationalism”
(vesti.uz/opasnye-igry-kazahskogo-natsionalizma/).

According to the Kazakhstan study,
Shustov says, “the level of inter-ethnic alienation” in Kazakhstan has grown
from 19.6 percent in 2012 to 26.4 percent in 2016; and it is greatest in the
areas where ethnic Russians form a significant part of the population than
elsewhere – the north, east, and center of the country and in the old capital
of Alma-Ata.

As a result, the ethnic Russians are
gradually moving toward “a diaspora-style way of life, worldview and behavior”
that precludes close relations with the titular nationality. Ethnic Kazakhs and
even Russian-speaking Kazakhs feel such things less intensely because they are
confident in the protection of the state.

But there is one thing members of
the two groups agree on: 20 percent of Kazakhs and 20 percent of ethnic
Russians say that the country will not be able to avoid open inter-ethnic conflict
in the future, particularly after Nursultan Nazarbayev passes from the scene
and is succeeded by someone who the two groups agree will be more nationalist
than the current president.

Russians in the first instance feel
discriminated against by measures and practices that put them at a disadvantage
with Kazakhs who speak Kazakh.At the
same time, however, the Kazakhstan study found that few Russians learn the
titular language: At present, only 4.5 percent of Russians in Kazakhstan say
they speak Kazakh.

The ethnic Russians who a generation
ago formed a plurality of the population in Kazakhstan now form only about 20
percent, Shustov notes, and many of them feel increasingly insecure and are
thinking about leaving, although the rate of departures now is relatively
small. Only 23,000 ethnic Russians departed last year.

But “after 2014,” when Moscow
invaded Ukraine, “concerns about the possible repetition in the northern
regions of Kazakhstan of ‘a Crimean scenario’ have only intensified.”

Bekturanova writes in her study that “Kazakh-speaking
young people are distinguished by comparably higher indications of a
manifestation of ethnophobia, intolerance, and conflict potential on an
ethno-religious basis than their Russian-speaking counterparts.” And some are
already acting on the basis of these attitudes.

Her research found that “more than
half of the ethnic Russians have a negative assessment of the political
situation [in Kazakhstan]” with 45.5 percent saying that it is bad. “Each tenth
Russian is a supporter of radical means of reforming the political system, and
each sixth says he or she is prepared to a radicalization of political views
and actions.”

As a result, she continues, “more
than a quarter of Kazakhstan’s ethnic Russians expect mass actions of protest
and an equal percentage expresses a willingness to participate in them. The
main reasons for their dissatisfaction are economic problems and
ethno-linguistic ones.” And that points to some dangerous possibilities,
Shustov says.

According to him, “the growth of ethnic
nationalism among the titular ethnos is creating especially favorable grounds
for interference from outside on the model of Ukraine” as well as for a renewal
of the massive levels of ethnic Russian flight that were observed during the
first decade after independence.